Hip Hop Hooray: A Wonderful Glimpse Into a Cultural Phenomenon
On Thursday night, the Paley Center in New York City hosted a first look at the upcoming VH1 documentary, The Tanning of America: One Nation Under Hip Hop, that debuts this week. Attendees got to see...
View ArticlePre-Live Tweeting the 86th Annual Academy Awards: The Gravity of Living in...
Video killed the radio star decades ago. Internet killed everything else. Personally, it utterly destroyed living in the moment. Too often, as I watch my favorite television shows or awards shows I'm...
View ArticleHow We're Written
Film and writing are two of my favorite things in the world, so it only seemed natural that I would decide to go to college for screenwriting. Because of this, my parents allow me to watch vast amounts...
View ArticleJimmy Fallon Now Faces Week Two and Beyond. Plus, What Happened During His...
Jimmy Fallon just finished the biggest week of his career as the new host of The Tonight Show and it went exceedingly well, save for one glaring problem. But more on that later. Now it's on to week...
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'Downton Abbey' Recap, Season 4 Finale: Princely Scandals And Mr. Carson's...
Spoiler alert: Do not read on if you have not yet seen Season 4, Episode 8 of PBS' "Downton Abbey." "Downton" has a funny way with time, doesn't it? One episode we're bracing ourselves for Edith's...
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The MovieFilm Podcast: Our Favorite Comedies of All Time!
I kick off this episode of the show by expounding on my reaction to Kevin Costner's spy flick 3 Days to Kill (read the full review here). In addition, Brian and I weigh the pros and cons of The Lego...
View ArticleHollywood, Stop Sweeping Survivors of Sexual Abuse Under the Red Carpet
Trigger warning: This post, excerpted from a Change.org petition, contains information about sexual assault that may be upsetting to survivors. In response to Dylan Farrow's claims that she was...
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Talking With Al Kooper About Michael Bloomfield and More
A Conversation with Al Kooper Mike Ragogna: Al, From His Head To His Heart To His Hands, that's pretty much how Mike Bloomfield did it creatively, right? Al Kooper: Yeah, that's what I thought. MR:...
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Movie Review: The Lunchbox
It took me two tries to see The Lunchbox (the first time was at a film festival screening that was cancelled for technical reasons) - but it was more than worth the effort. Ritesh Batra's moving,...
View ArticlePisces Brothers
The Beach Boys already had about four or five albums under our belt when these new comers, The Beatles, took the U.S. by storm in early 1964. As we rose to fame together, we enjoyed a friendly rivalry...
View ArticleA Brechtian Destruction of the Joy of Lego: Breaking the Fourth Wall for...
We are very angry at Lego, in my household. Very. This is a big spoiler alert, so, just, like, if you give two shits about the new Lego movie, skip this blog entirely. Cuz we're going to ruin it for...
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Chewbacchus Mardi Gras Parade Awesomeness!
Mardi Gras. The time when parades occur. Beads are thrown. Drinks are drank. Geeks are on the move. Wait, what? Geeks??! Why yes... New Orleans Geeks! Saturday night, in the Marigny, thousands turned...
View ArticleThe Americans at the Plaza
Season two of the award-winning, much acclaimed FX cold war series The Americans kicks off this week, proving that Americans were ready to embrace a television series about appealing KGB operatives:...
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Harold Ramis, Egon Spengler Made Nerds Cool
My first memory of Ghostbusters was on my family television set, with a massive top-loading VCR player we probably rented. My parents were away for the evening and I recall my older siblings having...
View ArticleFall in Love With Pompeii
12 Years a Slave closed down 2013 as the most powerful movie of the year, a movie that continues to speak to us today. It told the tales in history of human atrocity, the inhuman way another can take...
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Finally in Harmony Again
A year ago, I wrote here about a wonderful musical I'd seen 16 years earlier in its 1997 world premiere tryout at the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego. The show, Harmony, was written by Barry Manilow...
View ArticleAn Ode to Harold Ramis
I'll remember Harold Ramis as a writer more than an actor. His comedies viciously attacked plutocracies and he openly wanted to be disliked. As the hash tag #egonbutnotforgotten floats around Twitter,...
View ArticleWinners and Losers: Emotional Hardbody's 2014 Buffy and Bonehead Awards
It's the moment you've all been waiting for! No, not the Academy Award winners, but the Emotional Hardbody Buffy and Bonehead Awards! Buffy Awards are granted to Hollywood types who portray the values...
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Pussy Riot Says It Will Take the Fight Against Putin to Parliament
The boisterous concert of Amnesty International took place with 15,000 people and Madonna at New York's Barclays Center where Nadia Tolokonnikova and Masha Alyohkina delivered a magnificent speech in...
View ArticleCan Ron Blake Retake Jazz's 21st Century Groove With Millennials?
A moment of pop-music-meets-fantasy-football: What if you could put together your "dream team" concert? Lady Gaga, Madonna and Miley all in their prime? Nas, Tupac and Rakim? As Jazz breaks out of its...
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